Is it a one-horse race and what does that mean for power-sharing?
A SCARCELY BELIEVABLE day in Northern Irish politics yesterday.This of course followed another whirlwind few weeks where Arlene Foster was deposed and Edwin Poots elected to succeed her.
Jeffrey Donaldson MP lost out to Poots in the electoral contest by the smallest of margins, 19 votes to 17, and is the clear favourite to replace him. The Lagan Valley MP had been billed as perhaps the more moderate of the two candidates but the nature of the contest, in which there were no public hustings, meant that the race was as much about character and alliances as policy.
If Donaldson is chosen it may perhaps be somewhat of a coronation for the MP who was knighted by in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list in 2016. One of the potential headaches this would cause is that Donaldson is an MP in the House of Commons and is not an MLA in the Stormont Assembly.Donaldson could step down as an MP and be co-opted into the Assembly at the expense of another DUP MLA who steps down, but this path is unclear.
Such is the disarray within the party right now it would not relish the prospect of its new leader having to run in an unsafe seat, but if an immediate election was avoided it could give the party time to regroup. There are risks inherent in the DUP forcing him aside in that if they were to fail to come up with a consensus alternative it could cause even more division in the already fractured party.
#Open journalism No news is bad news Support The Journal Your contributions will help us continue to deliver the stories that are important to youThis leverage is something that benefitted Sinn Féin in securing its agreement from the British government that it would legislate for cultural issues including the Irish language at Westminster, but this leverage does not disappear with Poots’ departure.
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